WePay Drops 600lbs of ice in front of PayPal Conference

#1

Post by sophmonroe » Tue, Oct 26, 2010, 4:57 PM UTC

WePay Drops 600lbs of ice in front of PayPal Conference
techcrunch.com

Re: WePay Drops 600lbs of ice in front of PayPal Conference

#2

Post by csomar » Tue, Oct 26, 2010, 5:04 PM UTC

but WePay isn't PayPal. Why are they doing so? They won't solve my problem and I already know PayPal sucks.

Re: WePay Drops 600lbs of ice in front of PayPal Conference

#3

Post by aresant » Tue, Oct 26, 2010, 5:08 PM UTC

csomar wrote: post #2

but WePay isn't PayPal. Why are they doing so? They won't solve my problem and I already know PayPal sucks.

a) Inserting themselves into a hot-button topic and getting incredible free press all over the place.

b) "We defintely see ourselves as a competitor to PayPal, says WePay co-founder Richard Aberman."

http://www.bankingreview.com.au/2010/06/we-came-wepay-we-con...

Re: WePay Drops 600lbs of ice in front of PayPal Conference

#4

Post by TallGuyShort » Tue, Oct 26, 2010, 5:10 PM UTC

There are hundreds of dollars below the ice, and they chased down the pallet-mover? Why didn't they just get some ice picks?

Re: WePay Drops 600lbs of ice in front of PayPal Conference

#5

Post by noodle » Tue, Oct 26, 2010, 5:13 PM UTC

csomar wrote: post #2

but WePay isn't PayPal. Why are they doing so? They won't solve my problem and I already know PayPal sucks.

indeed. if wepay would provide a very basic, simple method for sending/receiving payments and provide something like paypal's IPN, i'd be all over it. the focus on groups is good for carving out a niche for the service, but its not something i need.

Re: WePay Drops 600lbs of ice in front of PayPal Conference

#6

Post by zacharycohn » Tue, Oct 26, 2010, 5:16 PM UTC

TallGuyShort wrote: post #4

There are hundreds of dollars below the ice, and they chased down the pallet-mover? Why didn't they just get some ice picks?

I think hundreds of dollars in the hour or so it'd take to get to them all is nothing compared to what Paypal generally makes an hour.. Or what they'd lose if people started switching to WePay.

Re: WePay Drops 600lbs of ice in front of PayPal Conference

#7

Post by eande » Tue, Oct 26, 2010, 5:17 PM UTC

csomar wrote: post #2

but WePay isn't PayPal. Why are they doing so? They won't solve my problem and I already know PayPal sucks.

making PayPal in a bigger scale aware that their policy is hitting too easily and too many. Despite reading all bad publicity on PayPal and how many accounts got frozen I thought it won't happen to me. It did not take long and my account just got frozen. I am not sure how the software algorithm triggered it, but now I am stuck and yes PayPal sucks.

Re: WePay Drops 600lbs of ice in front of PayPal Conference

#8

Post by hugh3 » Tue, Oct 26, 2010, 5:19 PM UTC

TallGuyShort wrote: post #4

There are hundreds of dollars below the ice, and they chased down the pallet-mover? Why didn't they just get some ice picks?

This is starting to sound like an adventure game puzzle.

You are a security guard at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. There are hundreds of dollars inside a six hundred pound block of ice. You cannot leave your station. How do you get at it?

Using an ice pick? Why would a security guard have an ice pick? Maybe if it were Chicago, but this is San Francisco.

Use another tool to chip away at it? I dunno, that's a lot of ice.

Melt the ice somehow? Nice idea, but how?

Re: WePay Drops 600lbs of ice in front of PayPal Conference

#9

Post by jasonlotito » Tue, Oct 26, 2010, 5:19 PM UTC

noodle wrote: post #5

csomar wrote: post #2

but WePay isn't PayPal. Why are they doing so? They won't solve my problem and I already know PayPal sucks.

indeed. if wepay would provide a very basic, simple method for sending/receiving payments and provide something like paypal's IPN, i'd be all over it. the focus on groups is good for carving out a niche for the service, but its not something i need.

Providing PayPal's IPN is technically easy. PayPal succeeds because it can do what it does and still operate. PayPal is protected in so many ways, it's not even funny. I have no idea how someone would disrupt their model.

Re: WePay Drops 600lbs of ice in front of PayPal Conference

#10

Post by jacquesm » Tue, Oct 26, 2010, 5:21 PM UTC

What a funny way to grab a ton of free press.

They must have planned this for some time given the logistics involved and the time it takes to freeze quantity of water that size and get a nice and clear chunk.

My own paypal saga isn't over yet, though there have been some surprising developments.

I sincerely hope that someone will one of these days replace paypal with a better way of doing peer-to-peer payments, but online fraud being what it is the question is if it actually can be done without in the long run incurring the same kind of penalties that paypal use has now.

After all, when you're just starting out with a payment service most or even all of your transactions are legitimate. But once the service gets more popular there will be an inevitable influx of scammers, whitewashers, identity thieves,phishers and other less desirable elements. To get rid of the one without hurting the other is a very difficult problem.